Jazz Composition Festival: Ken Pullig Visiting Scholar Ensemble Featuring Miguel Zenón
Event Dates
(EDT)
David Friend Recital Hall (DFRH)
921 Boylston Street
Boston
MA
02115
United States
Admission
Free
Miguel Zenón
Image courtesy of the artist
Grammy-winning saxophonist, composer, and current Ken Pullig Visiting Scholar Miguel Zenón will put on a performance at Berklee as part of the Jazz Composition Festival. A visionary artist blending jazz with the rich traditions of his Puerto Rican heritage, Zenón will lead the Ken Pullig Visiting Scholar Ensemble alongside Berklee students in a dynamic program of his original compositions. Known for his innovative approach to melody, rhythm, and storytelling, Zenón continues to push the boundaries of modern jazz.
Grammy-winner, Doris Duke Artist, and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow Zenón represents a select group of musicians who have masterfully balanced and blended the often-contradictory poles of innovation and tradition. Widely considered one of the most groundbreaking and influential saxophonists and composers of his generation, he has also developed a unique voice as a conceptualist, concentrating his efforts on perfecting a fine mix between jazz and his many musical influences.
Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón has released seventeen recordings as a leader, including his latest Golden City (2024), the Grammy-winning album El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2 (2023) and the Grammy-nominated Música De Las Américas (2022), Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera (2019), and Yo Soy La Tradición (2018). He has worked with luminaries such as the SFJAZZ Collective, Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, David Sánchez, Danilo Pérez, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Kurt Elling, Joey Calderazzo, Steve Coleman, Ray Barretto, Andy Montañez, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, the Mingus Big Band, and Bobby Hutcherson.
In April 2008 Zenón received a fellowship from the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Later that year he was one of 25 distinguished individuals chosen to receive the coveted MacArthur Fellowship. In 2011 he founded Caravana Cultural, a program which presents free-of-charge jazz concerts in rural areas of Puerto Rico. In 2022 he received an honorary doctorate from La Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the highest honor bestowed by the institution. In 2024 he received a Doris Duke Artist Award from the Doris Duke Foundation.
Zenón has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Tribune. In addition, he topped both the Jazz Artist of the Year and Alto Saxophonist of the Year categories in the 2014 JazzTimes Critics' Poll and was selected as Alto Saxophonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2020 (when he was also recognized as Arranger of the Year). In 2023 he was recognized by the same organization as the Composer of the Year.
As a composer he has been commissioned by SFJAZZ, NYO Jazz, the New York State Council on the Arts, Chamber Music America, Logan Center for the Arts, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Spektral Quartet, Miller Theater, the Hewlett Foundation, Peak Performances, PRISM Quartet, and many of his peers. Zenón has given hundreds of lectures and master classes at institutions all over the world and is a faculty member in the Music and Theater Arts Department at MIT, as well as the current Visiting Scholar for the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department at Berklee College of Music.
Zenón lives in New York City with his wife, Elga, and their daughter.